Dos, lack of memory?

Discussions about using non Windows and Linux guests such as FreeBSD, DOS, OS/2, OpenBSD, etc.
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alinoe
Posts: 5
Joined: 27. Jun 2008, 20:29

Dos, lack of memory?

Post by alinoe »

I have problem with memory under dos. My configuration:
Host Debian linux 2.6.22-3-k7, virtualbox 1.6.0
Guest MS-DOS 6.22, Ram 4 mb, video memory 4 mb
I have problems with some games, they just don't want to start, it's probably becouse lack of memory but I don't know how to solve it.

My config.sys has lines:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB

and all drivers have devicehigh and lh in autoexec.bat

mem gives:
Conventional 618K
Upper 50K
Reserved (XMS) 1 740K
Total Memory 2408K
Total under 1 MB 668K

Largest executable program size 618K

I've also tried with device=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram and expanded memory. It didn't help

When I try to run for example warcraft it gives:
Warcraft needs an additional 268KB of memory to run in it's minimum configuration ....
When I try to start wolf3d I can see only black screen and machine is hanged out.

Somebody know what I should do.
Sorry for my bad english, I know it sucks but I don't use it too often.
ghr
Volunteer
Posts: 376
Joined: 25. May 2007, 22:46
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: DOS, Win3x, Win95, WinXP, Ubuntu, OS/2

Post by ghr »

Your numbers look a bit strange to me... Here's what I get from a DOS 6.22 VM under VBox 1.5.6 (config 4M RAM, 4M video):

Memory Type Total = Used + Free
---------------- ------- ------- -------
Conventional 640K 88K 552K
Upper 107K 29K 78K
Reserved 384K 384K 0K
Extended (XMS) 2,965K 1,241K 1,724K
---------------- ------- ------- -------
Total memory 4,096K 1,742K 2,354K

Total under 1 MB 747K 116K 630K

Largest executable program size 552K (565,360 bytes)
Largest free upper memory block 32K (32,320 bytes)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

Sometimes VBox seems to have some (?) problem with small amounts of memory - so why don't you give it a bit more ? By the way, NOEMS is fine.
alinoe
Posts: 5
Joined: 27. Jun 2008, 20:29

Post by alinoe »

I set 4 MB because my first computer had 4 MB of RAM :)

Ok I increased amount of Ram from 4 to 32 MB and video memory from 4 to 16 MB.

Now mem.exe shows:

Memory Type __ Total _=_ Used _+_ Free
--------------__-------___ ----- ___ -----
Conventional __ 640K ____ 34K ___ 606K
Upper________ 103K ____ 30K ___ 73K
Reserved _____ 384K ____ 384K __ 0K
Extended(XMS) 32 641K __ 2 765K _ 30 003K
--------------__-------____-----____------
Total Memory __32 768K __ 2 765K _ 30 003K

Total under 1 MB 743K ____ 64K ___ 679K

Largest executable program size 606K
Largest free upper memory blodk 34K

I've tried emm386.exe noems I=B000-B7FF X=D000-D4FF
and without I=B000......
And still I can't run games like wolf3d, eye of beholder. After I run wolf screen becomes black and virtual machine is dead. I can run some older games like Street Rod but refresh sucks then.
alinoe
Posts: 5
Joined: 27. Jun 2008, 20:29

Post by alinoe »

I installed DOS on VMware and I don't have problems with running games on it ( only performance sucks but there's no screen flickering like on Virtualbox). So I think it's virtualbox's fault that DOS doesn't run properly at least on linux version, I don't know how it act on XP.
So propably I have to buy some 486 DX if I want to enjoy all old games and programs ;(
ghr
Volunteer
Posts: 376
Joined: 25. May 2007, 22:46
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: DOS, Win3x, Win95, WinXP, Ubuntu, OS/2

Post by ghr »

Good for VMware.. however, that's an incredibly heavy app... So if it is for DOS games I (with WinXP host) would try:
1 DOSBox
2 Qemu
3 VirtualBox

Next, on second thoughts I realised that you might have a problem either with memory or with video. Now we don't know what as really in the way.

Third: yes, I still have a 486DX :-)
alinoe
Posts: 5
Joined: 27. Jun 2008, 20:29

Post by alinoe »

I have dosbox, it's nice app but not ideal, not all games run on it ( for example new teenagent ) I haven't win XP, only linux. With memory or video I haven't problems becouse games under dosbox or newer games like quake 3 run without problems. So the only solution is some old machine :p
Gian-Piero
Posts: 5
Joined: 29. Dec 2008, 16:47
Location: Switzerland

Post by Gian-Piero »

This is my exprience:
A DOS 6.22 guest on a Win XP Pro host does not allow to run median to big applications.
With a FreeDOS guest on a Linux host (openSUSE 11.0), there are no problem. The solution is to use FreeDOS 1.0 in place of DOS 6.22
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